Daily Darwin

It just keeps getting better and better.....

Darwin 11 9 24

Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>Daily Darwin: Saturday, November 9, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Darwin: Saturday, November 9, 2024

 It just keeps getting better and better.....

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Tourism

[{"type":"text","text":"Some places just aren't a good fit for RVs and motorhomes. "}]

The Needles Highway in South Dakota’s Custer State Park, near Mount Rushmore, is one of them.

Denise Yelton and Todd Beaver discovered that during an excursion in Custer recently when a motorhome intended to thread the Needles Eye Tunnel found itself fraying halfway through.

Yelton and Beaver, who have been “full-time RVers” since April, decided to take an early-morning drive on the Needles Highway on Friday. They departed in their Jeep Gladiator, leaving their 38-foot Holiday Rambler Nautica parked at the campground.

“We left early because we knew the highway would get really crowded with Sturgis,” Yelton told Cowboy State Daily. “When we got to the tunnel, we pulled over because I wanted to record a video of my husband coming through the tunnel.”

When they pulled off the road, the Freedom Elite motorhome behind them kept going. That’s when disaster struck.

“I was sitting there waiting to see if he was going to make it through, and he got stuck,” Denise said. “I recorded it, obviously.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Aw, The Awning"}]

Drivers pass through three tunnels on the Needles Highway. The Needles Eye is the tightest at 8 feet, 4 inches wide and 9 feet, 8 inches tall.

Many people have attempted to get their RVs, motorhomes, and travel trailers through these tunnels, and many have failed. 

Yelton had seen videos of similar incidents and wasn’t keen to emulate them.

Yelton thought the Freedom Elite might have had a chance. Unfortunately for the couple pulling it, they were over-accessorized.

“The awning started scraping against the side of the tunnel,” she said. “When he realized that he wasn't going to make it, he started backing up, and that's when it was making all the noise.”

When the RV backed up far enough, the awning arm fully extended until it fell off. The driver backed out of the tunnel and parked in the pull-off to assess the damage with his wife.

Yelton and Beaver hopped in their Jeep and continued onward. Yelton assumed they conceded they couldn’t thread the Needles Eye and went back the way they came.

“I think he just thought he could get through, and maybe if it wasn't for the awnings, he possibly could have,” she said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Don’t Be This Guy'"}]

Before Yelton posted the video of the RV incident on her 

, it had 347 followers. Three days later, it has more than 9,000 followers.

“It has blown my mind,” she said. “I’m not out there trying to get followers and stuff, but it's really blown my mind.”

When Beaver retired from the Charlotte Fire Department last year, the couple left Gastonia, North Carolina, in April and haven’t stopped since.

“We’re sharing our adventures and life on the road, one mile at a time,” Yelton said.

Yelton noticed that the Freedom Elite that attempted to scrape through the tunnel also had a North Carolina license plate. However, she figured that wasn’t a good time to chitchat.

[{"type":"text","text":"“I didn’t speak to them at all,” she said. “We just went on.”"}]

She did point out the numerous signs along the road warning drivers of the width and height of the upcoming tunnel. It seems the driver either underestimated the Freedom Elite’s width or overestimated his ability to get through the tunnel.

“He had to make it through the previous tunnel to get where he was, and that one was wider,” she said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"There’s An App For That"}]

How can RV and motorhome drivers avoid these incidents? There’s an app for that.

As she was researching full-time RV life, Yelton learned the secret to safe travels is the RV Life app.

“We put our destination in the app, and it’ll tell us what we want to avoid,” she said. “That’s what you have to do as an RVer, and we knew that because we follow a lot of them.”

That’s why their 38-foot Holiday Rambler Nautica RV stayed where it was. That’s for living and traveling the open road, not exploring routes like the Needles Highway.

“We never would have intentions of taking our camper on a mountain road,” she said. “We've researched enough about the areas that we're headed to so we know what to do when we get there.”

Yelton and Beaver have been savoring South Dakota for several days. The next leg of their trip will take them on Interstate 90 to Buffalo, then over the Bighorns to Cody on their way to Yellowstone National Park.

Thanks to RV Life, they know where they can and can’t go with their RV, lest they end up facing scrutiny on social media.

“We’ve seen a lot of videos, so we knew our RV would never make it through those tunnels,” Yelton said. “That was my first time seeing something like that.”

RV stuck 8 17 26

<title>RV Driver Tries To Scrape Through South Dakota Needles Eye Tunnel, Gets Stuck | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A couple was videotaping the Needles Eye Tunnel in South Dakota’s Custer State Park on Friday when a motorhome tried to thread the narrow opening and became stuck. "I think he just thought he could get through," they said.

RV Driver Tries To Scrape Through South Dakota Needles Eye Tunnel, Gets Stuck

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Food

A so-called "prank caller" left a Cheyenne pizza shop holding 18 hot pizzas and a roughly $300 bill Friday.

[{"type":"text","text":"So L'Osteria Mondello did the only thing that seemed right."}]

The whole order was sent to the Cheyenne Regional Medical Center Emergency Room. 

What began as a costly prank Friday afternoon turned into an unexpected meal for health-care workers after the caller who ordered the pizzas never showed up — and the phone number used to place the order apparently belonged to someone who knew nothing about it.

For L'Osteria Mondello owner Dave Agovic, the episode was particularly frustrating because those weren't the only pizzas flying through his ovens.

At almost the same time, the restaurant had another order for 12 or 13 pizzas and yet another for seven or eight.

"I had like over 40 pizzas in the same time," Agovic told Cowboy State Daily.

The kitchen was so slammed the restaurant temporarily stopped taking  orders, telling callers it could be an hour and a half to two hours before they could accommodate them.

[{"type":"text","text":"And the people ordering the 18 pizzas wanted them fast."}]

They told the restaurant the food was for some sort of children's wrestling club, Agovic said. His crew hustled and had the order ready in roughly 40 minutes.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then nobody came."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Something Isn't Right"}]

The pizzas sat above L'Osteria Mondello's ovens, where the restaurant keeps orders warm until customers arrive, but space was disappearing.

Agovic still had legitimate orders coming through the kitchen, and 18 unclaimed pizzas take up an awful lot of room.

[{"type":"text","text":"Eventually, he called the number that had placed the order."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The person who answered said they hadn't ordered any pizzas."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"That's when Agovic realized what had happened."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I figure out it's a prank,\" he said."}]

In about 3 1/2 years running the restaurant, Agovic said something like this had happened only once.

The restaurant generally doesn't require customers to pay in advance because Agovic doesn't want to operate that way.

"We trust people," he said. "Cheyenne is a small place, and Cheyenne is the place with wonderful people. And we really try to make sure we have that trust with the local community."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Now What?"}]

Agovic looked at the mountain of food and asked his employees what they should do with it.

[{"type":"text","text":"The staff tossed around possibilities."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Then Agovic had an idea."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Why don't we deliver it to the hospital?\""}]

The crew agreed the emergency room sounded right, but he needed help getting the pizzas there. 

At the same time, a former L'Osteria Mondello employee who  worked for Agovic for more than 2 1/2 years stopped by to say hello. 

Ryan Lemley, 18, wasn't scheduled to work, but when he saw what was happening, he volunteered.

[{"type":"text","text":"Ryan loaded up the pizzas and headed for the ER."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"He was my hero that day,\" Agovic said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Little Piece Of Italy"}]

For Agovic, feeding people is about considerably more than getting a pizza into a box.

He's originally from Montenegro, a small Mediterranean country in the former Yugoslavia.

He had lived in New York before coming to Cheyenne during the COVID-19 pandemic, initially expecting to stay only a couple of months.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then he met a woman from Cheyenne and \"fell in love.\" "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"She also introduced him to L'Osteria Mondello. "}]

"Actually, this place was way better than most of the places I try pizza in New York City," he said.

He became friends with longtime owner Joe Mondello, who was looking toward retirement but worried about what would happen to the restaurant he'd spent decades building.

[{"type":"text","text":"Eventually, Mondello asked Agovic if he'd like to take it over."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Agovic told him he couldn't afford it."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Mondello offered to finance him."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"There was a condition: Don't mess with the recipes."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Today, Agovic runs the restaurant with his wife, Anika Williams."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"And Joe Mondello hasn't disappeared."}]

Agovic said Mondello still stops in, sometimes every week or every few weeks. Occasionally, he'll make pizzas and visit with customers.

"I feel this is still his place because that's his baby," Agovic said. "He built it for last 40 years. I'm just keeping tradition, and we are just one big family."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Food Is A Lifestyle "}]

That idea of food bringing people together is part of what Agovic brought with him from Montenegro.

In Mediterranean culture, he said, a meal isn't supposed to be something people inhale before rushing out the door.

"Food is just not quick bites," he said. "Food is more about lifestyle."

[{"type":"text","text":"Meals stretch out. Families gather. People talk."}]

At L'Osteria Mondello, Agovic said he wants customers to have some version of that experience.

"Many people can't afford to go to Italy that often or ever," he said. "So they can try a little bit of Italy in our restaurant."

And rather than letting hundreds of dollars worth of food go cold because of somebody's joke, the people at L'Osteria Mondello found another table.

“They are very hardworking people and they help save a lot of lives around. And I was like, let's donate, let's reward them.”

Pizza 8 17 26

<title>Cheyenne Pizza Joint Gets Stiffed With $300 Order, Donates 18 Pizzas To Hospital | Cowboy State Daily</title>

After a so-called "prankster" left a Cheyenne pizza joint stuck with 18 pizzas and a $300+ bill, the restaurant donated them to emergency room workers at the Cheyenne hospital. “Let's reward them,” said Dave Agovic, owner of L'Osteria Mondello.

Cheyenne Pizza Joint Gets Stiffed With $300 Order, Donates 18 Pizzas To Hospital

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Around Wyoming

In the hyper-competitive world of multi-million-dollar western real estate listings, buzzwords like “regenerative agriculture” often pad a broker’s promotional materials. But a $29.9 million ranch just listed by Hayden Outdoors near Weston in northeast Wyoming has a little more heft behind its hype than usual.

That’s because Martha Stewart traded the Hamptons for the High Plains of Wyoming last year to come study the farm-to-fork ecosystem at Steiner Ranch, which was then called Sweetgrass at Thunderbasin. 

Stewart later praised the operation on her official Instagram account, highlighting the “extreme” energy of the ranch’s owners, Rick Steiner and Deirdre Wildman. 

She was also interested in the property’s unique capacity to feed its guests almost entirely from the surrounding land, praising multi-course menus that featured on-site harvests of goose, rabbit, beef, poultry and local berries, as well as produce from the ranch’s greenhouses, orangery, and its open-air culinary gardens. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Ranch Grows Everything It Needs"}]

It was the culinary garden that got the ranch noticed by Stewart, who owns a 153-acre farm in Connecticut. 

“Last year, early in the season, we had a group of shooters here and they saw my wife’s culinary garden, which is truly an extraordinary thing,” Steiner said. “It’s a culinary garden that produces enough stuff for us to provide literally all the vegetables that 250 guests eat during the course of the fall season.”

Steiner’s wife, Wildman, gave them all a tour of the gardens, explaining their approach to a regenerative, farm-to-fork operation.

“So the guy said to me, ‘I gotta get our chief gardening officer out here to see this,’” Steiner said with a chuckle. “And we said, ‘chief gardening officer?’”

Steiner has heard all sorts of acronyms such as CEO, COO, CFO. But that was the first time hearing CGO.

“And then he said, ‘It’s Martha Stewart,’” Steiner said. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s kind of interesting.’”

That Stewart visit wasn’t something Steiner thought would happen. But the following Monday morning he had a text asking if such and such date would work for Stewart’s visit.

“Sure enough, they were out here 10 days later and got the full tour of the gardens and the ranch,” Steiner said. “And we have a small animal farming operation that raises chickens and turkeys and ducks and geese, rabbits and goats, and those also, both eggs and meat, are served to guests.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"What It’s Like To Serve Martha Stewart"}]

Wildman served breakfast, lunch and dinner to Stewart. For breakfast she even used one of Stewart’s own biscuit recipes. 

“I’ll be honest with you, there’s a little bit of anxiety as to whether or not your biscuits are going to meet Martha Stewart’s standard,” Steiner said. “When my wife asked me about it, I said, ‘Well she ate several of them so …’ She passed with flying colors.”

Stewart, Steiner added, was a down-to-earth, gracious guest.

“She’s got a great sense of humor and she’s very engaging, very straightforward,” Steiner said. “She’s not shy about telling you what she thinks. I just found her delightful.”

Stewart posted several pictures about her visit on Instagram, including some standing with Deirdre and others on the ranch.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Elevation Creates Unique Microclimate"}]

The ranch’s ability to grow so much produce is a feat in arid Wyoming, one that’s helped by the ranch’s elevation, which has created a favorable microclimate.

“I would say the surrounding (Thunder Basin) national grassland is a 16 to 24 inches a year precipitation environment, and the ranch I would say is 30 to 36 inches a year of precipitation environment,” Steiner told Cowboy State Daily. “The clouds roll in from whatever direction the wind is blowing and have to rise up to climb over the hills on the ranch and the ridge lines. When they rise up, they cool down and drop some moisture.”

That’s given the ranch all kinds of trees and created great habitat not only for gardening but for wildlife as well. 

“It’s the basis for what’s going on here in every dimension,” Steiner said. “It’s great for ranching. It’s really great for the wildlife. And it just makes the place much nicer and more scenic than most other places.”

The ranch’s location in so much wild and remote territory, with above-average water resources, has made it such an exceptional wildlife haven. 

“I’ve hunted in probably 40 countries,” Steiner said. “This one of the finest hunting properties on the planet. Really big elk, fantastic mule deer, white-tailed deer, lots of turkeys. 

"And it also provides exceptional bird-shooting experiences for pheasants and chukars, which we have been offering to guests for the last four years. It’s an amazing sporting property that also supports about 100 cow-calf pairs if you want to run some cows on the side.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Time For A New Steward"}]

Steiner’s path to Wyoming started far from the Black Hills. The West Point graduate served about five years in the infantry, then spent roughly 18 1/2 in Special Forces, eventually retiring as a Green Beret colonel. 

After the military, he built a business career in Denver, but had always had it on his bucket list to own a ranch.

“My business success was sufficient that I could make my dream a reality,” he said.

Still, it took him a decade looking at ranches in multiple states before he finally found what he was looking for. 

“One of the things that this ranch has going it for that people don’t really think about when they’re looking at ranches is it’s 45 minutes from Gillette Campbell County Airport,” Steiner said. “So you can fly to visit us on United, or you can fly in privately if you have that.” 

Steiner and his wife, however, feel ready to retire. A ranch like this one, capable of attracting someone like Martha Stewart to visit, needs a new steward, Steiner said.

“It’s too much ranch for just a married couple who wants to have a lifestyle ranch,” Steiner said. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Two Mansions On The Ranch"}]

Steiner’s Special Forces career helps explain why the property has been designed to completely survive being cut off from the main grid. It has its own dual-array solar grids, industrial backup power, private gravel pits, and independent fuel caches, mimicking a military Forward Operating Base — but one that’s been built to some luxury standards.

There are not one but two mansions on this turnkey ranch. The flagship, called The Lodge, is 7,100 square feet and includes four bedrooms with five bathrooms and a central living area anchored with a double-sided fireplace. 

The kitchen is chef grade, with premium appliances, custom cabinetry, and a large center island. 

There’s a whiskey lounge as well as a private office and a large covered back deck, the better to view the surrounding beauty of the Black Hills. An oversized garage means plenty of room for vehicles, whether practical or pleasure.

The second mansion, called the Berm Home, is 6,200 square feet designed for energy efficiency. It, too, features a high-end kitchen and a large great room that’s designed for gatherings. 

The Covey Conference Center, meanwhile, includes a spacious dining hall, full-service bar and kitchenette, as well as a climate-controlled wine cellar. A large elevated deck looks out over the property’s creek and its pond.

And then there’s the Rendezvous, a commercial-grade facility for larger culinary events, hosted gatherings, and large-scale entertaining. It's surrounded by the ranch’s culinary gardens. It also includes laundry facilities, dry storage and utility areas that keep the ranch and its many operations running smoothly. 

The Rendezvous is where Steiner has placed a 150-year-old cherry wood bar he found in a hotel in Anaconda, Montana.

“It was in the hotel in Anaconda by the early 1880s, and we have photographs of the bar in operation,” Steiner said. “The mid-1880s was when Anaconda and Butte were the copper mining capital of the country. Enormous amounts of money were put into that area at the time, but when the copper played out the hotel went into decline, and the bar ended up here.”

The property, adjacent to the national grasslands, gives it expansive vistas that make it feel much bigger than its 5,582 acres.

“It’s not a big flat open thing or a big sagebrush grassland,” Steiner said. “The fence lines of the ranch on the south side of the ranch and the north side of the ranch, you stand there and look at a grassland that unfolds for miles and miles and miles.”

Steiner Ranch DSU08404 2 22 8 17 26

<title>5,500-Acre Wyoming Ranch And Hunting Destination Hits Market For Nearly $30M | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The 5,582-acre Steiner Ranch in northeast Wyoming, a premiere spot for hunting trophy bull elk and mule deer, has just been listed for sale at nearly $30 million. Last year, Martha Stewart was at the ranch to study its farm-to-fork ecosystem.

5,500-Acre Wyoming Ranch And Hunting Destination Hits Market For Nearly $30M

Public Safety

Someone’s truck flipped in Yellowstone National Park’s Hayden Valley on Sunday, requiring a massive crane to come retrieve it.

Bozeman photographer Mike MacLeod was driving through Hayden Valley around 11 a.m. Sunday with his wife, Barbara, when 

. The truck, which appeared to be a red Ford F-150, was upside down in Alum Creek along the Grand Loop Road.

“From what I could see, the cab was at least partially submerged by the time we got over there,” MacLeod told Cowboy State Daily. “They had a couple of ambulances there, the road was cordoned off, and they were controlling traffic through there.”

MacLeod got some information from the rangers at the scene. Apparently, the red truck might not have been at fault for its predicament.

“It was still under investigation, but the driver reported being cut off,” he said. “It was a husband and wife inside. The wife was able to get out of the vehicle, but the husband needed help. They both seemed to be OK.”

Traffic was delayed for roughly an hour as a large crane maneuvered into place to retrieve the vehicle. The massive machine lifted the tethered truck and carried it to a nearby pullout so traffic could resume.

The truck was battered, with the roof and hood severely dented, but otherwise intact.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Hard Landing In Hayden"}]

The stretch of the Grand Loop Road through Hayden Valley can be one of Yellowstone’s more treacherous roads to those who aren’t familiar with it.

The two-lane road is elevated, sometimes dozens of feet, above the Yellowstone River floodplain. Those spots are flanked by water or wetlands on either side.

“They have placed cones or even logs at places where tourists generally pull over,” MacLeod said. “They want to keep people away from the edge of the road because the drop is so abrupt.”

MacLeod said it’s also one of the more difficult roads to maintain. Between being closed for the entire winter and the relentless summer traffic, finding time to make any repairs or improvements can be tricky.

Earlier that morning, MacLeod helped a young Italian family change a tire on their rental car in almost the exact spot where the F-150 flipped over. They had been riding on the shoulder of the road, which destroyed the tire.

“Right afterward, Barbara remarked that it was surprising that cars weren’t regularly rolling off the narrow roadway,” he said. “Imagine our surprise when we returned later in the day to see this.”

Traci Kanaan of Berea, Ohio, was driving through Hayden Valley when she encountered the scene. She said the responding rangers used the traffic delay as an educational opportunity to talk about why Yellowstone’s wolves, bears, and grizzlies are important and shouldn’t be touched.

“Thankfully, the couple is OK” she said. “They didn’t land in a boiling hot geyser or mud pit. The environmental crews came out to ensure gas, oil, and other car fluids didn’t damage the environment. None of the nearby bison were injured, and no one else was injured.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Fishing For Vehicles"}]

When a vehicle gets stuck in Yellowstone, park officials call in the professionals. As long as vehicles are reasonably close to the road, they can be retrieved without much issue.

In July 2024, a vehicle carrying five people 

, a 105-degree acidic pool. The occupants escaped with non-life-threatening injuries, but the vehicle was completely submerged.

Hanser’s, a heavy-duty towing and recovery service based in Billings, Montana, was called in to retrieve the vehicle. With assistance from the U.S. Water Rescue Dive Team, they managed to do so.

Hanser’s specializes in difficult vehicle recoveries. In July 2025, they 

 of U.S. 14-A on the western slope of the Bighorns.

“With our team and the unbelievable amount of equipment we have, we can mobilize and handle things like that, 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” said Hanser’s co-owner Shel Hanser. “We’re ready to go, all the time, to do the best we can to be safe, handle traffic, and get people moving. That's always our goal.”

MacLeod believed the crane that recovered the F-150 was from Hanser’s but couldn’t confirm.

, but Sunday’s incident in Hayden Valley might have been avoided if whoever may have cut off the truck had driven more considerately. That, at least, is what MacLeod was told.

“The driver (told the ranger) that he’d been cut off, but who knows,” he said. “Who knows why that happened, or if (the road) had anything to do with it, but we helped that Italian family at the same spot earlier that day.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"For us, it was odd that one occurred right after the other.”"}]

Hayden Valley truck in creek Mike Mac Leod 8 17 26

<title>Truck Veers Off Road, Lands Upside Down In A Creek In Yellowstone's Hayden Valley | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Ford F-150 was recovered by a giant crane in Yellowstone National Park after it veered off the road and landed upside down in a creek in the Hayden Valley on Sunday. "The cab was at least partially submerged by the time we got over there," said a witness.

Daily Darwin: Saturday, November 9, 2024

In case you missed it

More in Daily Darwin

Daily Darwin: Tuesday, August 18, 2026

Daily Darwin: Monday, August 17, 2026

Daily Darwin: Sunday, August 16, 2026

Daily Darwin: Saturday, August 15, 2026

Most read